Kori bustard; Strutting its stuff in the Serengeti.
I found this series of captures from one of the Snapshot Serengeti camera-traps. It shows nicely the way a kori bustard cruises around the savannah looking for things to eat. With males reaching up to 19kg these birds are Africa’s heaviest flying bird. In order to get airborne these birds need a lot of space as they must run to gain momentum. Once airborne their big powerful wings mean they can fly at quite a speed. However they only fly when pushed spending most of their time walking sedately through grasslands.
Found in two main pockets, south, south west Africa and east Africa they favour flat arid open country. The Serengeti plains are ideal habitat. Here they amble around looking for a wide variety of food eating berries, seeds and other plant matter as well as lizards, snakes, rodents and birds. They are known to gather in quite some numbers where there are infestations of locust or other insects. Like other large ground birds recent fires also attract them where they search for scorched or injured small animals. Kori bustards are known to drink water using a sucking motion which is unusual for birds.
Not unexpectedly for such a large bird, they do not roost in trees preferring to bed down on the ground which is also where they build their nests. However they do like to choose a feature to build their scrape of a nest near, perhaps a rock or tree stump or even a clump of grass. Not such a silly idea to choose a landmark in an otherwise featureless landscape.
A kori bustard chick is precocial meaning it can walk around almost as soon as it is born, very important for ground nesting birds. It shares a common trait with other ground nesters of having a cryptic plumage completely different to the adult plumage that helps conceal the young from predators. The stripy baby is also very cute.
Credit: Photo by Mehgan Murphy, Smithsonian’s National Zoo (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Although the kori bustard does very well in the Serengeti outside of protected areas they have suffered like so many other animals from a reduction in numbers through loss of habitat and falling prey to hunters.
Snapshot Serengeti 
I’ve always thought they were pretty impressive. A gathering of kori bustard would really be something to see. Thanks for posting the chick. It is so totally off the scale on cuteness! 🙂
I once saw a group of about 20 together in Northern Limpopo, South Africa. It was impressive.
We should also mention the male kori’s impressive display. He raises his tail over his back in a flounce of white feathers, and puffs out his neck feathers like a great white ball, conspicuously advertising his territory. He may also stand like a post with neck puffed out and tail down, and utter a deep thudding boom.
Yes, you are right, a really impressive sight.